Walmart is starting to use bloggers, this New York Times article says.

Um, I don’t condone this kind of work and if I find out a Microsoft employee is doing it I’ll publicly point it out.

For the record, here’s my best practices: always attribute where you got something from. Even if it doesn’t make you look good.

Second, for companies thinking of getting in this space: why don’t you just blog? That’s the best way to get your point of view out there. Hidden agendas will be found out eventually (and there are plenty of them, particularly in comment sections — how do you know that anonymous commenter wasn’t paid by a competitor of mine? You don’t.)

Another way to look at it? Join, don’t use. Ask yourself: are you communicating or trying to manipulate others into communicating?

Be skeptical! Even of me. Although I’ll always tell you where I am getting freebies, getting paid, or getting my back scratched.

Update: Richard Edelman, who runs the PR firm that was involved here, talks about this on his blog and gives good suggestions for both bloggers and PR agencies.

Update 2, Here’s some more news on this topic.

NYkette: No, I don’t blog for Walmart.
Joanna Lipari: but is it ethical?
Glenn Reynolds has a ton of links and analysis of this (must read for marketers and PR folks).

Are you gonna listen to a Venture Capitalist who used to work at Microsoft? I did, and it was worth it.

To everyone else, what is Rick ranting about? Seth Godin’s speech to Google Google secrets.

Makes it even better that a few weeks ago Seth Godin said to watch my own video. Seth’s video is inspiring.

Who the heck is calling my cell phone with a Skype address I asked myself before picking up the phone. “Hi, this is Lenn,” the voice said. Damn, it was like Skype itself was calling me. Heheh. (Lenn Pryor is my former boss, who left Microsoft to join Skype).

So, we quickly made plans to meet at the local Fry’s in Campbell. It was great seeing him again. He told me all about what’s happened in his life. Moving to new countries (two different countries in less than a year). Having a new son. New job. Hey, Lenn, is there any other life change that you can possibly squeeze into one 12-month period?

But, you know what? All that change made Lenn wiser and very interesting to be around. I won’t break the news (that’s for him and his blog) but sounds like good times are ahead for the Pryor family. Oh, and more change.

For those who don’t know, he’s helping keep the developers at eBay/Skype happy and working together.

I snapped a picture of Lenn inside the Fry’s. Which, of course, is breaking the rules. John Fry told me a few years back that he doesn’t want photos taken inside his stores. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.

Drew Bell unsubscribes.

Roy Schestowitz unsubscribes and goes even further: “[Scoble’s] reputation is overrated. When it comes to technology, I found that Scoble cannot tell his ass from his face.”

My reply? First I want to reply to a couple others he made. The reason I’m on WordPress is cause Matt Mullenweg won a contest I held a few months back (he’s the guy who developed Wordpress). Not to mention that it was getting talked up a LOT by people who I trust (and still is). Oh, and I LIKE Matt Mullenweg and the folks he’s been hiring. Just like I like the folks over at Six Apart (my book blog is on TypePad). And just like I like the folks over at MSN Spaces (my wife’s blog is on that).

The second thing of Roy’s I’d like to reply to is his link to an article that says that there’s a back door in Vista. This is absolutely NOT true. I have been interviewing tons of people in the BitLocker team about that article and I’ll have the video up soon.

It’s amazing the kinds of rumors that get started and just how much effort needs to be spent trying to fight rumors that are totally not true (and, if any technologist spends five minutes THINKING they can see why putting a back door into source code is just NOT a good idea. But the “Microsoft is evil” view of the world is just not conducive to doing some critical thinking).

It’s a lot easier to call Microsoft advocates names and say they are lying and are corporate shills and all that. Or imply it by just saying I don’t know my face from my behind.

Regarding my skills as a technologist. I’ve done more than 500 video interviews that are all in the public eye and mostly unedited and filmed in one take — most of which are an hour long and have a lot of back and forth and I NEVER prepare, so all the questions are off the top of my head (except for the Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer ones, where I went in with a list of questions and then went impromptu halfway through each of those interviews). With diverse subjects and interviewees from Kernel architects to Xbox game developers to hardware designers to beer makers.

You try doing that many interviews with that diverse a set of technologists without knowing the difference between my ass and my face. But, just proves the old adage that you can’t please everyone all of the time no matter what you do.

That said, no, I don’t write software so if we’re gonna get into that kind of pissing match, I’ll lose. Doesn’t mean I don’t know enough to at least know the issues. I worked as an associate editor at Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal for a few years and learned quite a bit about software engineering back then (and, a lot since then too).

Personally I’m glad that Roy is an advocate for non-Microsoft technologies. I’d hate it if he was using these kinds of tactics on our side of the fence.

If I ever see a Microsoft advocate treat someone advocating another platform this way I’ll personally rail on them. That’s not a tactic that’s acceptable.

What do you think? Does this kind of tactic persuade you to switch operating systems?

Don’t take my word about it, but when I talk with developers inside Microsoft (and outside, truth be told) about who they look up to the most, Jim Gray’s name invariably comes up. Here’s a video of him on the Behind the Code show. I was in the audience, it was a real honor. That guy has more brain cells than the rest of us, I’m pretty convinced (and he’s a darn nice guy too).

I’m glad to see that Neil Holloway corrected his quote about MSN vs. Google (he says he was misquoted). That’s what’s nice about this new two-way medium. Misquoted? Correct it!

I get the Channel 9 guy into the picture with Matt Cutts of Google. I bet that’ll get him razzed in the office next week. Matt wrote up the panel discussion we were on together on his blog. Tim Stay has even more complete notes.

I was on KUOW radio tonight (that is the local public radio station and the show I was on is their business and technology show — The Works with John Moe). Fun show. You can listen (Real Networks required). I talked about my book and about the importance of NOT being a tireless sycophant.

So, who called me a sycophant? That’s Declan Kennedy. He gave me, and Microsoft major s**t for not supporting Web standards and generally, well, being evil. Says “Try turning up to actually confront a blogger about the problems inherent in their company’s approach to the computing industry, and you’ll more than likely just get shouted down.”

Hmm, not my experience at all. What did I do? I emailed the team that did the Mix contest and said “fix the code.”

But what do I know? I’m just a tiresome sycophant.

More work to do.

News.com has more details on the Origami. I’m getting a good look on Monday morning. Right before the team hops on a plane to go to the CeBit conference in Germany.

Just saw this on Channel 9’s forums: what if Microsoft designed the iPod box. It’s a video. It hurts. Ouch.

How do you improve yourself? 1) Be honest with yourself about what you do. 2) Repeat.

Honesty hurts. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

I’m off to New York. Behave yourselves!

What’s the danger of not letting your internal bloggers know about your product release plans? They might not be able to help keep your announcements in proper perspective. But, that’s OK. Todd Bishop, of the Seattle PI did more work over the weekend to dig into the details behind the Origami project. He learned that there isn’t going to be a product release on March 2, but that we’ll learn more details. John Markoff of the New York Times has more details too. And Memeorandum is tracking a bunch of comments.

Kent Newsome asks “will it walk the walk?”

Whenever hype gets ahead of an announcement, the answer has to be: no.

But, then, you gotta realize that I totally agree with Joe Wilcox who says that the best companies underpromise and overdeliver.
Maybe I should have posted that no one will want an Origami and that it sucks raw potatoes.

Seriously, let’s keep our hype in check, OK? Where’s the snarks when we need them? Calling Christopher Coulter, calling Christopher Coulter!

Oh, and marketing teams, I know you don’t want to let bloggers in on the secret, but when you don’t tell us what’s up we can’t help you keep expectations under control. Now everyone expects Origami to be bigger than the Xbox. I’d much rather expectations were dialed down a bit.
To bloggers outside Microsoft: it’s not healthy when things get hyped up so much. Whenever a company does this (whether it’s the one I work for, or another company), ask some tough questions. I have a ton. What is this? Who will want it? When will it be purchasable? When will there be decent quantities on the shelf? What are its limitations? Who’ll think it sucks? Who’ll think it rocks? Are any real customers using it yet? What will the price be? What will the real price be (after you deck it out to work properly?) When will we be able to get our hands on one? Does it have a chance in the marketplace? Why? Will Patrick Scoble want one of these instead of a video iPod? Why? (And, yes, as soon as I have one in my hands I’m gonna show it to Patrick and see if we have a clue).

Anyway, it’s gonna be a fun week. And not just because of Origami stuff. See ya in New York!